LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — At least nine people have died in the most recent round of harsh weather to pummel the U.S., including eight people in Kentucky who died as creeks swelled from heavy rain and water covered roads.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS will lay off thousands of probationary workers, according to two sources familiar with the agency's plans, and cuts could happen as soon as next week. This comes as the Trump administration intensified sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Much of the U.S. East endured a renewed round of harsh, soggy weather Saturday, as water submerged cars and buildings in Kentucky and mudslides blocked roads in Virginia. Forecasters predicted snowstorms in the Northeast and the threat of tornadoes for the Mississippi Valley.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A Texas judge on Thursday ordered a New York doctor to pay more than $100,000 in penalties for prescribing abortion pills to a woman near Dallas, a ruling that could test “shield laws” in Democratic-controlled states where abortion is legal.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s recent executive order aimed at restricting gender-reassignment treatments for people under age 19.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China and that eventually he hopes all three countries could agree to cut their massive defense budgets in half.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he and Russian leader Vladimir Putin had agreed to begin negotiations on ending the war un Ukraine following a sudden prisoner swap.

Storms dumped heavy snow and freezing rain on a swath of the U.S. East from Kentucky to the nation's capital, causing hundreds of traffic accidents, knocking out power in places, and threatening to flood waterways as temperatures began rising Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tulsi Gabbard was sworn in as President Donald Trump's director of national intelligence on Wednesday shortly after she was confirmed by the Senate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday removed a key legal hurdle stalling President Donald Trump’s plan to downsize the federal workforce with a deferred resignation program.

Heavy snow and freezing rain caused hundreds of crashes in Virginia and left tens of thousands of residents in the dark as the central Appalachians and parts of the mid-Atlantic states braced for heavy rains on Wednesday. Meanwhile, California readied for a storm that could flood areas ravaged by the recent wildfires.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday and renewed his insistence that Gaza could be emptied of all residents, controlled by the U.S., and redeveloped as a tourist area — a plan that could likely only work if the Arab nation agrees to accept more refugees.

A snowstorm blew into the mid-Atlantic states on Tuesday, causing dozens of accidents on icy roads, prompting school closures, and stoking worries about possible power outages.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that a precarious ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas should be canceled if the terrorist group doesn’t release all the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza by midday on Saturday — though he also said that such a decision would be up to Israel.

Texas executed Steven Nelson on Wednesday, Feb. 5, for the 2011 murder of Clint Dobson, pastor of NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Rescuers searched Friday for any sign of a plane that went missing while carrying 10 people across Alaska’s Norton Sound south of the Arctic Circle. The Bering Air Caravan, a single-engine turboprop, was heading from Unalakleet to Nome on Thursday afternoon with nine passengers and a pilot, according to Alaska's Department of Public Safety. Authorities were working to determine its last known coordinates.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Southern Baptist pastor Scott Turner was confirmed Wednesday as the housing secretary, a role central to President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda at a time when most Americans say the cost of living around necessities is a top concern.

Dairy cattle in Nevada have been infected with a new type of bird flu that's different from the version that has spread in U.S. herds since last year, Agriculture Department officials said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that his relationship with religion had “changed” after a pair of failed assassination attempts last year, as he advocated at the National Prayer Breakfast at the Capitol for Americans to “bring God back" into their lives.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday delivered a robust defense of the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday intended to ban athletes born male from participating in girls' and women’s sports.

Retired Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr, a decorated World War II pilot who broke racial barriers as a Tuskegee Airmen and earned honors for his combat heroism, has died. He was 100. Stewart was one of the last surviving combat pilots of the famed 332nd Fighter Group also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first Black military pilots.

NEW ALBANY, Ohio (AP) — Police searched for a male suspect Wednesday in a workplace shooting that left one co-worker dead and five others wounded at an Ohio cosmetics warehouse. There were no reports of any kind of confrontation or dispute that would have prompted Tuesday night's shooting, New Albany Police Chief Greg Jones told reporters at a news conference.

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The remains of all 67 victims of last week's midair collision of an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C., have been recovered, authorities said Tuesday.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has been joined by nine of his GOP colleagues in introducing the American Values Act, which would permanently enact and expand existing prohibitions on the use of U.S. foreign assistance to pay for the performance or promotion of abortion services overseas.